Who’s hiring: Wanna job in comics?
Job postings from around the net in comics related positions reveal that some areas are still growing, mostly digital, but also brick and mortar:
Continue ReadingDavid Gabriel explains Marvel’s trade program
ICv2 has a wide ranging interview with Marvel's Sr VP of Sales, David Gabriel, and it covers just about every topic you could imagine, from digital coupon conversion to page counts to pricing. Go here for all that: Part 1 and Part 2. However since we've had a high degree of scrutiny on Marvel's trade program of late, here's what he had to say on that topic:
Continue ReadingNerdist and ReedPop pact, plan White Space 2
Chris Hardwick's role as nerd frontman to the world continues unabated as he's just signed a deal to appear at more ReedPop events, including C2E2 and NYCC. The "Talking Dead" host will appear at several events at both shows, and Nerdist Industries will participate in another White Space B2B think tank event such as was held at the 2011 New York Comic-Con.
Continue ReadingDiamond Select releases Avengers Minimates and gigantic, aggressive Hulk figure
Toy Fair is just around the corner—the annual gathering of all things toyetic at the Javits Center. Lots of spoilers for the SPIDER-MAN and AVENGERS films have already been inadvertently revealed through toys news in the last few weeks, so the well may be dry on that, but there is still actual toy news. For instance, you may be excited about the Avengers movie, but once you know there will be Avengers Minimates, how much MORE excited are you?
Continue ReadingCatron and White return to their roots at Fantagraphics
Over the weekend, Tom Spurgeon spotlighted the return of two old school members to the Fantagraphics mansion with Mike Catron and Preston White joining as editor and designer, respectively. Catron is actually the co-founder of Fantagraphics, going back to the Virginia/Connecticut origins of the company as The Nostalgia Journal. White (who was known as "Peppy" in the olden days) was a designer for many of the seminal '80s publications.
Continue ReadingSo just how many digital comics did DC sell in January?
Have you been wondering what digital comics DC has been selling the most of? While you can do a running snapshot of iTunes' "in app Sales" it doesn't give you a month's total. But, as they did last month, DC has just released their Top Ten digital comics for January to CBR. And it goes like this:
Continue ReadingNice art: Rokuro Taniuchi
Rokuro Taniushi is a Japanese illustrator of the '50s on who has been called "the kawaii Norman Rockwell of Japan" for painting some 1300 covers for the influential weekly magazine Shukan Shincho. Kawaii is the "cute" style of Japanese art, seen and deconstructed in everything from Hello Kitty to Murakami.
Continue ReadingLiefeld’s Co-Writers; James Robinson’s New Series; and Batwing Gets a New Artist – Updated
Change is still in the air at DC. You may recall Rob Liefeld got three new books? We now know his collaborators on those.
Continue ReadingDiamond Comics Distribution is 30
Is February 1 really Comics Day and not just Hourly Comics Day? It is the birthday of The Beat (2), ACT-I-VATE (6), Image Comics (20), The Day The Comics Stopped (0) and also Diamond Comics Distributors, a birthday that we failed to mark yesterday in all the hoopla. It was 30 years ago that the company was incorporated, the first step in becoming the world’s largest distributor of English-language comic books, graphic novels and related pop-culture merchandise.
Continue ReadingBlacksad is back in BLACKSAD: A SILENT HELL
BLACKSAD by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido is a famous comic in Europe, but the recent Dark Horse collection has created an American audience, as well: there are more than 20,000 copies of the book in print and a fourth printing is planned. Blacksad's success isn't horribly puzzling: a stylish noir storyline by Canales, and some of the most gorgeous anthropomorphic art ever by Guarnido make the tale universal. And the US setting doesn't hurt.
Continue ReadingBatman: The Dark Knight Gets a New Writer
In the 4th "New 52" writer shuffle of the week, DC has announced Gregg Hurwitz as the new writer for Batman: The Dark Knight, as of issue #10. I suspect they really mean co-writer on that, as I'm under the impression artist David Finch, for whom the title was created pre-relaunch, has a pretty good amount of input on the plot.
Continue ReadingNew funding strategy for comickers: borrow money from David Choe, the $200 million artist
David Choe, the eccentric and talented graffiti artist/painter who once flamed out as the artist on an X-Men spin-off, is now set to make about $200 million from the Facebook stock offering. It seems that back in the day Choe painted murals for Facebook's Palo Alto offices...and instead of taking a lump sum he asked for stock. As you may have heard, Facebook went public yesterday, and was quickly valued at $5 billion or so, making Choe's little decision one of the savviest moves ever by an art-type. “Always double down on 11. Always," Choe advises in a recent art book.
Continue ReadingMust reads: two views of Angoulême
The recently concluded Angoulême comics festival is the most respected comics event in the world, but also one a bit remote from the daily comics grind of the average American reader. Two con reports will bring you up to speed in a hurry. Before we link, one note: I wrote earlier that crowds were reported as smaller this year, but the overwhelming evidence is that the festival was packed, as usual, with official attendance given as 215,000.
Continue ReadingCourt rules making your own Batmobile violates copyright — UPDATED
We've mentioned a few times here a lawsuit for copyright infringement by DC against an outfit called Gotham Garage, which sells replica Batmobiles—based on the '60s Batman TV show in particular—as well as other vehicles based on famed fantasy cars, like the Mach Five. If you were thinking of buying one, better hurry, because a judge has ruled that the Batmobile is subject to copyright.
Continue ReadingWe’re Two!
Yes, The Beat is two years old today as its own standalone website. Woot. And we're celebrating just as we always do --slaving away into the wee hours of the day so you have something to read with your coffee. Oh yeah, we also changed the background just for the day—yes, it's awful, but it's our blog and we'll be tacky if we want to.
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